The present invention relates to a recording medium player apparatus such as a cassette tape recorder, and particularly to a recording medium player apparatus such as a small-sized cassette tape recorder having a recording medium insertion slot.
In the case of a mobile recording medium player apparatus such as a cassette tape recorder and, in particular, a so-called car-stereo apparatus disposed in the vicinity of a driver's seat in the car, the area available as an operation face of the recording medium player apparatus is extremely limited. For example, it is typical to provide not only an insertion slot for inserting a cassette tape as a recording medium, but also an operation control circuit, an indication circuit, etc. on the operation face of the cassette tape recorder body within a small area of, for example, about 18 cm .times. 5 cm.
A suitable apparatus mounting location where the driver of the vehicle can very easily perform operation of the apparatus is only an extremely limited space, such as a portion of the vehicle dashboard or console. Accordingly, it is required to additionally provide a circuit for operational control of a radio tuning function and for indication thereof within such a limited area of 18 cm .times. 5 cm as described above.
As one countermeasure for accommodating the various circuits efficiently within such a small area, there is a method in which a dustproof door for covering a cassette tape insertion slot is also used as a dial portion of a radio receiver, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 43-29326. In this method, wasted space is used effectively where the radio receiver, built-in type car stereo apparatus is only used as a radio receiver. In contrast, where the car-stereo apparatus is used as a recording medium player apparatus, such as a tape recorder, the space cannot be used for disposing circuit elements for display and control because the dustproof door is pushed into the inside of the body when a cassette tape is inserted.
Recently, there has been a strong demand for a high degree of control functions in a recording medium player apparatus such as a tape recorder. That is, various functions such as jump selection to select programs by a particular piece of music, multi-program selection in which a program enables several pieces of music to be selected ahead of time, repeating play of a piece of music, selection of a particular type of tape (normal tape, chromium dioxide tape, metal tape), Dolby change-over (OFF, B-type, C-type), tape running direction change-over (in the case of auto-reverse apparatus), etc., are required in addition to the fundamental control. Fundamental control comprises the tape recorder, including control on PLAY (reproduction), FF (fast feed), REW (rewind), STOP (stoppage), and EJECT (take-out a tape cassette), on/off of power switch, sound volume, sound quality, etc. In addition, taking into consideration the devices for the change-over control of the above functions and for indication of those functions, it is difficult to provide circuits for the display and control functions within such a limited space of about 18 cm .times. 5 cm. The difficulty is particularly acute in the case where a radio-tuning function, etc., is integrally provided in addition to a tape recorder function such as an audio appliance or in the case where a video function such as a television set, a VTR (video tape recorder), or the like, is provided in addition to such an audio function. In those instances, it is necessary to provide control and indication for the various functions, so that it is impossible to arrange all the devices for those functions within such a small space as described above.
If an indicator for indicating operational information with respect to operations of a playing portion, a tuner, etc., and play information with respect to contents of play, and so on, does not have a relatively large area, then an operator cannot distinguish or recognize the contents of information indicated. It is, however, difficult to increase the area of the indicator when a recording medium insertion slot is provided in the front surface of the player apparatus as described above, so that there is a disadvantage in that the indicator cannot achieve its indicating functions sufficiently.
In order to solve such a problem, as shown in FIGS. 14 and 15, it is possible to provide a pivotally mounted open/close body 104 in front of a recording medium insertion slot 103 formed in a front panel portion 102 of a housing 101. Further, an operation portion for controlling the operation of the play means, an indicator portion for indicating the operating conditions of various functions, etc., are provided not only on the front panel portion 102, but on the open/close body 104. Thus, the positive enlargement of the area of the operation portion or indicator portion through the use of the open/close body makes it possible to cope with the expansion of the operation portion and the increase in the contents of the control information and the play information to be indicated.
In the case of providing such a pivotal open/close body 104, in order to prevent the pivotal open/close body 104 from interfering with an edge portion of the front panel portion, a hinge mechanism 106 is provided for pivotally attaching the open/close body 104 onto the housing in the vicinity of the front surface of the open/close body 104. In such a configuration, however, the hinge mechanism 106 is always exposed so as to detract from the overall appearance of the recording medium player apparatus.